Huntington Beach City Council candidate Michael Posey says he's had enough of the council banning consumer items — from plastic bags to sales of cats and dogs.
He said he and many residents he has heard from are fed up with council members...

Huntington Beach City Council candidate Erik Peterson, a punk rocker back in his teenage days, still enjoys a TSOL concert every now and then.
But Peterson, now 46, says he has a plan to improve the city while not sticking it to the man.
"The...

Huntington Beach city officials had a jarring glimpse last year of what their pension contributions would look like over the next seven years.
They bit the bullet again at an April 7 study session, where they learned how much the city's contributions to...

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Huntington Beach's finance department forecast another balanced budget for the coming fiscal year, though it reminded City Council members of rising costs of unfunded liabilities, mostly for city employee pensions.
It's the city's second consecutive balanced budget, meaning no cuts in services, according to Finance Director Lori Ann Farrell.
In fact, additional police officers and a portion of the long-awaited senior center project are included in the budget for 2014-15. But Farrell and budget manager...

Huntington Beach will pay higher retirement contribution rates in the future, according to an actuary.
John Bartel, of Bartel Associates, told officials during a council study session Monday that the California Public Employees' Retirement System is planning on changing its discount rate to 7.25% from the current 7.5%, requiring public employees to drop more money into the pension system.
CalPERS describes the discount rate as being generally the same as the expected rate of return on investments....

No layoffs, no department cuts and no service reductions. That's what the Huntington Beach Finance Department told council members during a discussion Monday of the proposed 2013-2014 budget.
For the first time since the recession hit in 2008, finance director Lori Ann Farrell and budget manager Carol Molina said the city's general fund was balanced.
"It must've been a bit of a pleasure to put together a budget where you weren't going to all the department heads and saying, 'Cut 10%, cut 10%,'"...

Directing traffic is part of a police officer's job, and in the city of Fountain Valley, keeping cars moving comes with a $145 monthly bonus — and a bigger pension.
Fountain Valley officers can also pump up their pensions by working with police dogs or mentoring schoolchildren. Those who stay in shape get as much as $195 more each month.
All these perks boost officers' salaries and add thousands of dollars to taxpayer-funded pensions for years to come.
The California Public Employees'...